


His Best Friend

by Five_seas



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 17:50:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20679464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Five_seas/pseuds/Five_seas
Summary: Rey goes on the hunt for a ghost. Or is he?Repost from my tumblr? I honestly don't know anymore - I found this on my hard drive.





	His Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Star Wars. This is a fan work only. 
> 
> Takes places after TFA.

Rey didn't tell anybody where she was going.

She supposed that was mean on her part, after everything that's happened, everything Leia and the Resistance did for her, but then, what would it have meant if she'd asked for permission first. She was nobody's child, and she was certainly nobody's slave. The ship had a functioning radio and a tracker that she didn't shut down. If a girl couldn't go off on a quiet, solo trip to clear her head - even if that girl was a Jedi-in-training - what could she do?

In fact, Rey decided as she cleared the planet's atmosphere and picked up speed, it was especially important that she took solo trips as a Jedi-in-training. To stay sequestered suggested that the Resistance didn't trust her. That they doubted Master Luke still. 

At least, that's what she told herself.

*

It started off on a boring afternoon. 

She'd been wandering the base, clearing her head after a long drill, when she felt a tug in the pit of her stomach - a familiar sign that somebody was trying to make a connection through the Force. A very familiar, very dark somebody.

Rey was about to shut it down, when something about the energy made her pause and examine it closely. It was certainly Kylo Ren, but there was something else to it. It felt faded, worn around the edges. Very old, almost like a memory.

"Rey?" 

She turned to find General Organa standing right next to her. She hadn't even sensed her approach, and from the look on her face, Rey realized she must have been standing rooted in one place for a very long time indeed.

"I'm sorry," she said and made some joke about the sun and the grass and the pretty colors. But Leia wasn't having any of that. 

"You sensed him, didn't you?" she said. "Just now, you sensed Ben."

Rey looked down. She knew Leia watched her like a hawk for any sign that her estranged son was trying to make a connection; she also knew that, from everyone on this base, Leia was the one who was most disappointed in him. But great disappointment only comes from great love, and there can't be love unless there is hope. Rey, with every negative shake of her head, delivered one little blow after another to the general's heart. 

"I was wondering when you would," Leia continued. "This was a favorite place of his."

This - a small clearing between hangers, with a route straight to the forest - is so quintessentially wholesome, so very un-Kylo-ish, Rey almost laughs. Almost, but not quite. 

"He used to come here?"

"Yes. He and Jake liked to pile on the crates and then have climbing competitions, with some monkey tricks thrown in. The more outrageous the better. A lot of scraped knees occurred on this patch." Leia smiled and shook her head. That's all it was - a sweet memory to her - but it introduced a new name into Rey's mind, a name that would become her obsession in the following weeks.

*

"It's a wild goose chase," Poe told her over drinks, when she wouldn't stop banging on about finding this guy Jake. "Kid disappeared from the barracks, weeks before Kylo went on his rampage and then joined the First Order. He was always a little wrong in the head if you asked me."

"How is it that nobody thought to look for him?" Rey asked. "He was his best friend. He could tell us so much, reveal weaknesses we don't even know about--"

"Okay, first of - Kylo Ren doesn't have friends, he has underlings. Second, Jake was the best friend of Ben. If he is still alive - if, Rey - he wouldn't know half the things that we do. Anyway, they looked for Jake when he first disappeared, but after the Paduan massacre, we all kind of assumed he was... well, a practice run."

And he may well have been. Rey didn't see fault in that logic. Every killer started somewhere close to home, and in Kylo's case, that may well have been his childhood friend. Except... how was it that turning on his fellow Paduan and his Master any less personal? Wouldn't they have noticed if he'd gone off the rails?

Not to mention that her gut wouldn't leave her alone. Whenever Jake's name got mentioned, Kylo - or the ghost of his childhood self, at least - reacted. She had to find out if there is salt in this theory, even if it hurt her.

So the next time Master Luke went into one of his dark moods - and they were frequent and dreadful - Rey put a notice that she was taking a few days and then got on the first available ship before anybody could stop her.

*

Following a cold trail was almost invigorating enough to be an exercise on its own. Rey went after one lead, then her Jedi senses would alert hr of another, and then she'd follow that, further and further into the galaxy. She thought the trip would be lonely and guilt-ridden. Instead, she discovered she almost enjoyed the quiet, the long stretches of time where she was at the helm of the ship, navigating a difficult cruise, with nothing but the cold stars and the ether for company. 

Perhaps it wasn't so surprising. On Jakku, she'd had to make do with her own company for years. She'd resented it then, but when she found herself on the Resistance base, she was almost overwhelmed by the constant crush of people, the total lack of privacy. 

Even if this trip comes to nothing, she thought, I got some peace at least.

And then she felt guilty. She was never satisfied, it seemed.

Just as she was starting to think she'd reached the end of her time - she had to come back eventually - she followed a thin thread that eventually turned itself into the biggest lead yet. Her senses - normal ones, Jedi ones - all lit up like decorations in a victory feast. She couldn't give up then.

*

If she had some expectations about what Jake might look like, it was definitely not what she found. Poe had drawn up the picture of a rat-faced boy to her, someone who was constantly whispering behind people's backs and who wasn't "entirely right in the head." 

Instead, she found a robust, even scary-looking chef in a halfway house, on a planet where not even the First order tried to recruit from.

"If you want to talk, you'll buy," he said instead of an introduction, and Rey told herself that if this came to nothing, at least she'd eat before heading back. She'd met a few Jakes along the trip, none of whom proved themselves to be the real one. If she got served another story about torturing animals, she would just get up and leave. 

"He used to be afraid of the dark," he said without preamble. "His parents used to keep the lights turned on in the whole house so that he wouldn't be waking up in the things that scared him the most. You could navigate your way through the base just by looking for their residence."

"I find that hard to imagine," Rey said.

"Well, they cured him. Or rather, he cured himself. As soon as he thought something was a weakness, he tried to erdicate it. Plus, he didn't want to be afraid of the dark by the time his uncle put him through his Jedi training."

Rey flexed her hand, to stop herself for reaching out for her lightsaber. Having it with her was a comfort, but not everyone saw it that way. It was better not to touch it unless she had to.

“You’re also doing it, aren’t you? The training, I mean?” Jake asked.

“How do you know?”

“Just a feeling I have.” He poured her a drink and slid it across the kitchen table. She handed over her money and watched as he started putting the meal together. “You look on edge. The other Paduans, they were the same - jumpy, sleep-deprived, intense. I mean, stars help you if you had something they wanted, or tried to get in their way. They got really riled up, really fast.”

“Was he like that?”

“He was a hundred times worse.”

Rey narrowed her eyes. The things this guy said sounded true, and felt even truer… but he was very forthcoming. Suspiciously forthcoming. 

“Aren’t you worried what he might do, if he found out you’re talking to me?” Rey asked. “I mean, do you even know what he’s done?”

“I’ve got eyes and ears, missie. I’m up to speed on his doings.” Jake stirred something up in a bowl, then splashed it into a hot skillet with such force, egg droplets flew all over the place. “No, I’m not worried. He’s got bigger fish to fry than come after some loser on the end of the galaxy because he tells people he used to be afraid of the dark. Not sure if you heard, but he’s got this beef with a certain ex-Stormtrooper.”

No deception, as far as she could tell. He either believed that, or he didn’t know better. But what does it mean, to know better, anyway, Rey wondered. Kylo Ren is known for having a short temper, but for someone to say that they know who that temper is most targeted to would take some understanding of the man himself.

An understanding she took this trip to gain.

“So tell me,” she said, leaning in, “If you weren’t afraid for your life, why did you run from him? They told me you disappeared long before he went Dark.”

“You’re waiting for me to tell you something shocking, aren’t you? Something that would… what, give you the key to how evil he is?” Jake snorted. “Typical.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked. “Has anybody else been here, asking questions?”

“Oh, plenty. Listen, doll, here’s the thing—” he leaned against the table “—you found me. If I really had something good to tell people about Ben Solo, my dust would have been scattered across the galaxy ages ago. Yeah, people come asking questions. Yeah, if they pay, I tell them my story. They never do anything with it, though.”

“Why?” she asked. “Because it’s false?”

“I don’t lie, doll. You can tell that. I tell them the truth. They varnish it. They hear what they want to hear, and ignore what they don’t. Like you - sitting there, all puffed up and baiting me to tell you how scared I am of this guy, how horrible our friendship was… you paid and I’ll hold up my end of the bargain, but I can tell already, you’ve made up your mind.”

Oh, she could see why nobody put in a real effort to find Jake. He was, well and truly, a pain in the arse. But… he still wasn’t lying. She sensed no deception. He believed, with all his heart, that what he said was true.

Rey wanted to say with certainty that she knew Kylo Ren - the man who had tortured her, the man who had killed his own father - but that was the thing. Jake hadn’t been there. He’d seen something completely different, something she needed access to.

“Tell me about him,” she said, and forced herself to listen. 

“There wasn’t really much to say about the guy.” Jake stirred the food. “He was a normal kid. A bit sadder than most, but still up for monkeying around.”

A throb of recognition - Leia, telling her about boys playing between hangars, climbing competitions and skinned knees. She felt Kylo Ren, or rather, Ben Solo, as though he was a ghost inside the room with them. 

“Sadder than most,” she repeated, slowly. She thinks of her childhood, of being abandoned on Jakku, at the mercy of scavengers. Barely surviving, but doggedly counting the days until her family returned. “I wouldn’t expect that.”

“Here you go again, with the assumptions. You’re thinking ‘I’ve got sad for you,’ and ‘He was fucking lucky to have his parents, what right does he have to sulk,’ and whatnot. I know, doll. I was you, once.”

She looked at Jake, then, looks at him not as a source of information, but rather, as a man. A simple collection of characteristics. A plain, unpleasant face. Strong body, almost defensively strong. Like someone who was little for a very long time and who had to put on a lot of muscle to survive. The people at the base had told her Jake had been recruited from an orphanage, and then brought on base for training with a whole bunch of other children in the days after the Empire’s fall.

His wounds, his hurt, they weren’t fresh, but they were visible to those who looked. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It must have been hard for you.”

“It was,” he replied. No attempt of dressing it up. “But Ben didn’t have many friends, either, so we found a way to make that work for us.”

“He wasn’t popular?”

“Not one bit.”

“I don’t understand why.”

Jake filled a plate and pushed it in front of her. “Here. That’ll keep your mouth occupied for a bit. No, he didn’t have friends. He was the son of the General and Han Solo, and nephew to Luke Skywalker. Everyone was trying so hard not to show him preferential treatment, they ended up making things worse for him. Imagine for a second - two of the three most famous people in the galaxy are your parents, and the third is your uncle and Jedi master. The Empire’s fallen, but there’s still unrest, and everyone’s telling you what big boots you have to fill. Oh, wait… you’re a Jedi-in-training, aren’t you? You don’t have to imagine anything.”

Rey gave him a dirty look. 

“That’s not to say he didn’t try,” Jake said. “He did. When his training got under way, he’d be with Luke more than anybody else, soaked up everything the old man had to say, tried harder and longer than any other. Some days, we’d meet on the street and he wouldn’t recognize me. Others, he’d call me in the middle of the night, raving about some horrible monster creeping up on him, and then the next day he’d deny ever saying that. He was getting worn down, and do you know what the three most famous people in the galaxy did about it? Nothing.”

“You’re saying they let him go into the Dark Side?”

“They did nothing, which is almost as bad as kicking him straight into Snook’s skirts. One day, he showed up to where I was training - I was gearing up to be a fighter on the ground, nothing special - and he looked like he’d been to Hell and back. He told me to run. Run, he said, as far as you can, and never look back. I thought he was just having a fever again, but he was so dead serious, he wouldn’t let me go until I promised. 

“I worried so I went to his master. I thought - he ought to know what to do. I went up to his quarters, gained entry, told my piece… and then Luke Skywalker just looked at me and asked who I was, again?”

Rey resisted the urge to close her eyes and sigh. As horrible as the idea was, it was also very believable. She, too, had walked in on Luke being spaced out and weary. That he’d had these episodes even before Kylo Ren had gone on his rampage… it worried her. 

“He didn’t pay attention at all,” Jake carried on. “So how could I hope that he would protect me, or any of us. Ben was going. I could see it, even if no-one else could. So that night I grabbed a ship and I flew as far as I could. Then I heard about what happened, and I flew further.”

“And now you’re here,” Rey said. 

“And now I’m here. Not a shabby way of life, either, if I say so myself,” he said. 

“I wish…” she started, and then stopped. What could she say? That she wished somebody had listened? That somebody had prevented this tragedy? Did she truly believe this guy’s yarn? Everyone who told her of Kylo Ren’s turning had made it sound like an overnight thing, like he’d just snapped as soon as the Dark Side tempted him… but what if that wasn’t the case at all? She listened to the signature of Ben Solo, that younger self who had been haunting her. She listened, and she thought of Leia’s disappointment - how it was so great, so bitter, because it was born out of such great love.

“I wish that was helpful at all,” she said, eventually.

“Yeah, well…” Jake shrugged. “I wish the galaxy was slightly safer, too. But wishes don’t pay the bills, doll. Now… are you gonna eat that?”

*

Heading back, with just a few hours to spare. She was busy setting the coordinates, so she didn’t see him coming. 

Or that’s the lie she told herself. Because when she raised her eyes from the console and saw the lone ship, with its First Order insignia and dented left wing, she was not the least bit surprised. Rey had been chasing after a ghost, led by another ghost, to hear the first tell the story of the latter. It was high time some living people made an appearance, too.

There was no fire, no assault with the Force either. Just a single message, from him to her, through that bond she so despised. 

Find what you were looking for?

Now that he’s so close, she cannot believe she thought for a second that he was trying to contact her on that first day. Ben Solo’s energy was erratic, wild. Kylo Ren is eerie. Absent. 

It doesn’t matter, what he said, he went on. That boy is dead.

Yes, Rey responded. I know.

Ben Solo couldn’t have survived. Whatever demons were torturing him, they had won. He hadn’t been able to stand up for himself under pressure, so he’d invented himself into someone who could. Someone monstrous, someone who could take on the burden for him.

The world is scary and someone is always trying to kill you. So you learn to fight back. She knew a thing or two about preemptive strikes.

From day one, she’d gotten the feeling from him that he was waiting for something. Now, she finally had an inkling as to what that might be.

I am not you, she thinks. I will not be you.

Long pause. We shall see, Kylo Ren responds, and then, without another word, he turns his ship and disappears. And Rey wonders if she didn’t reveal more to him about herself with this little trip, than what she learned about him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi.
> 
> I don't live in the USA. I don't have much of a platform. I'm not able to attend any marches.
> 
> But I want to use whatever platform I have to spread information and help. I have listed a few links and organisations here and at some of my other fics. If my work gives you pleasure, please donate. Sign petitions. Call your elected representatives, if you are in the USA. Keep yourselves informed and alert if you aren't.
> 
> Please. Thank you.
> 
> Organizations, Petitions & Go Fund Me:  
(these links come from Bailey Sarians latest video, she had great links so I'll use the same, go check out her video right here: https://youtu.be/iig8BEP-sOw )  
Color Of Change - https://colorofchange.org/  
Movement For Black Lives - https://m4bl.org/  
NAACP - https://www.naacpldf.org/  
Undocublack -https://undocublack.org/  
Petition for George Floyd - https://www.change.org/p/mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd?utm_source=brand_us&utm_medium=media  
Minnesota Freedom Fun - https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/  
Reclaim The Block - https://secure.everyaction.com/zae4prEeKESHBy0MKXTIcQ2  
Go Fund Me For George Floyd Family - https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd


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